News and views from the Adobe Community Team

Archive for September, 2011

It’s hard to believe that in just a few short days Adobe MAX 2011 will be upon us! The team has been working hard getting everything ready for the Community Leaders Summit and all the activities in the Community Lounge.

We’re adding something new to the Lounge this year: Office Hours @ MAX. A number of different groups and community programs at Adobe all want to have more face-to-face interaction with the community while at MAX, so we’re setting up special meeting spaces in the Lounge where anyone at MAX can drop by and chat!

Between MAX sessions, Unconferences, and all the other wonderful things to do at MAX, there’s no lack of stuff going on, but if have have some spare time, here’s some more events you won’t want to miss:

Monday 1-2 PM

RIM Developer Meetup

Monday 3-4 PM

Hang with the Creative Team + A Guest Appearance By Brian Yap

Monday 6-7 PM

Creative Suite Ambassadors Reception

Tuesday 12-1 PM

Game Developers Tweetup

Tuesday 1-2 PM

Meet & Greet with Evangelist Paul Trani

Tuesday 1-2 PM

A Peek Behind the Curtain: Meet the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite Team

Tuesday 2-3 PM

Training Partner Program Community

Tuesday 2-3 PM

Adobe Certified Expert Meetup

Tuesday 3-4 PM

Play Time – Come meet the Gaming Solutions Team

Tuesday 4-5 PM

Meet up with CS Design Evangelist Rufus Deuchler

Wednesday 11:30 AM-12:30 PM

Hang with the Creative Team + A Guest Appearance By Kyle Lambert

Wednesday 12:30- 1:30 PM

Meetup with the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite Team

No RSVP is necessary, just come on by the Community Lounge!

Adobe MAX is a huge high point for me and the team each year and this one is no exception. We’re all looking forward to seeing hundreds of old friends (and new) at MAX. Please stop by the Lounge and say “hi!”.

Last week I joined the Adobe UK crew to help out at Flash On The Beach, an excellent conference based in Brighton. It’s in my personal Top 5 of conferences due to the amazing content, great location, and all-around excellent vibe. 2011 was no exception. And even the weather played along; we had perfect sunny days that brought out the best in Brighton.

The big news from the conference was that this is the last FOTB in its current name and format. Sad news, but I have confidence that the FOTB spirit will continue, and I hope to be wending my way to Brighton again in 2012 for whatever FOTB morphs into.

Adobe sponsored the North Carolina Developer Conference (NCDEVCON) in Raleigh, NC last weekend (Sept 17-18th, 2011). There were over 250 paid attendees — the event sold out. I was approached (8) weeks ago to help wrangle speakers, content, promotion, logistics on behalf of Adobe. Hats off to Dan Wilson (@danwilson), Jim Priest (@thecrumb), and the Triangle Area ColdFusion User Group (TACFUG) volunteer members who worked so hard to make this a successful event.

Social Media:

Early on, there was some anxiety by the NCDEVCON team about having a paid event, but that “Angst” was quickly overcome when the social media campaign started. The registrations started back in July with a handful of paid registrants; and, NCDEVCON team ended up with over 260 paid registrants on Eventbrite. So, it’s important to thank a few folks!

Sure, there was some grumbling about the $60 conference fee. But, that nominal fee really helped with the event’s success. “Who doesn’t have $60?”, said Dan Wilson (NCDEVCON/TACFUG) in our weekly conference calls. Now, there was some accommodations made for the students, but the $60 bucks did ensure an amazingly LOW attendee drop-rate at 5%. We like to see that as sponsors! SO…

Lesson Learned for Event Organizers:

When the attendees have a stake in the conference, they are more likely to come to the conference! And your sponsors will be happy to see them turn-out!

AND — 250 NCDEVCOM’ers did turn-out! They came out to partake in a GREAT Regional Developer Conference! They got:

Thanks to Shawn Dunning and NC State University College of Textiles for an awesome building with unbelievable WIFI and AudioVisual equipment! For conference organizers, if you can hook-up with a local college or university like NC State, then this is a great way to go! The extra classrooms were very handy in providing extra learning opportunities for Hands-On Labs participants—with no additional overhead.

Adobe Keynote:

Adobe brought its best available speakers to NCDEVCON. The event also provided the first opportunity for Adobe’s ColdFusion Product team to introduce its new Product Manager — Rakshith Naresh. Adobe Evangelist, Terry Ryan, did the keynote introduction + provided an overview of where Adobe was headed in the web and mobile space. This overview and vision was much appreciated! So, there were a lot of sessions and most of them can be viewed online via NC State College of Textiles Video Services (again outstanding facility!): go.ncsu.edu/ncdevcon2011

Adobe community team and ColdFusion Product team engineers staffed a table at NCDEVCON. There was a new T-shirt to giveaway, dubbed the “CF is Da Bomb”. This was a new T-shirt designed by Adam Lehman’s wife (Rachel). There were 15% off coupons available to attendees looking to upgrade/purchase Adobe software. Attendees also got check out some of the news tablets loaded with mobile apps that were created Flash Builder 4.5.

Evening Social + Free Software Raffle:

Adobe gave out lots of software and promotional items at NCDEVCON, but attendees had to be present for the drawings at the evening social event and the event wrap-up session. Prizes were drawn by the NCDEVCON organizers.

I personally donated a boxed copy of Flash Builder 4.5 to www.5bucksischange.com.
“5 Bucks is change” is an initiative that supports several “micro-charities” through public donations of $5 increments. Janet Kennedy volunteers for this organization and is based in Raleigh, NC. As their marketing and social media person, Janet raffled-off the Flash Builder 4.5 software to the NCDEVCON attendees raising over $400. The NCDEVCON staff matched that amount for a total gift of $800 that will then be given to various micro-charities.

More Photos:

Mike Brunt aka @CFWhisperer stopped by the Adobe table to pick up his shirt

Adobe SE, Josh Adams at ColdFusion HOL 9-17-11

Oğuz Demirkapı at the evening social

Adobe Evangelist Terry Ryan helping Mobile App HOL attendee 9-18-11

NCDEVCON Attendees

Adobe Evangelists: Ray Camden and Terry Ryan checking into NCDEVCON

Wrap Up:

NCDEVCON certainly provided a great opportunity for developers to get up-to-date with the latest web and mobile tools — And Adobe Was There! But, NCDEVCON was also good for Adobe! While Adobe is expected to be out amongst its developer community, the event also was the first chance for Adobe’s ColdFusion team and evangelists to meetup, since the program transition to India. Supporting regional conferences is good for the community eco-system; good for business; and, good PR. We hope to be at NCDEVCON next year.